My Life in the Ladies Room

See this shirt here? A few weeks ago I got something like it. In black, but where the cleavage starts showing it had a little swatch of tasteful black lace that kept my cleavage somewhat under control. I know, it sounds tacky but really it was fine, and it was the perfect top because it offered gut and butt coverage, yet I still had a waist. And in basic black I could not go wrong for work or play.

Mornings are crazy and as I rushed the boys out the door I grabbed it out of the clean laundry pile and threw it on over khaki’s with tasteful black flats. I didn’t have time to check out the whole outfit, but it’s a go-to shirt so no worries. I dug earrings and a necklace out of my purse on the ride to work and checked my hair and lipstick in the rear view. All was well.

Hours later I am sitting in a meeting. A meeting where I TALKED About WORK STUFF to other people. At WORK. With WORK PEOPLE. At some point the meeting finally ended and I ran to the ladies room, only to find that there were three big holes in my “tasteful” black lace inset. Three holes. Suddenly my “tasteful” lace inset, which was supposed to be covering my cleavage, had become a beacon of trashy in an otherwise white-bread outfit. Instead of cleavage camoflauge, I was unknowingly providing a frightening peep show. I was Amy Winehouse in a mini-van.

I don’t know how the three holes got there, but I suspect it might have something to do with assorted cars that unnamed short people that I live with may or may not have thrown into the wash that I may or may not have recovered when they started clanging away in the dryer. We may never know.

In any event, I had some quick lace damage control to do. Since I am not a 17th century nun, I don’t know how to repair lace. So I hit the ladies room with a pair of nail scissors, and whipped the shirt off and went to work carefully cutting the lace inset out and then sewing a few small stitches along the neckline to minimize tit exposure. Thank God for those little sewing kits they give you in hotels or I would have had to glue the shirt to my neck to avoid flashing my already spooked co-workers.

As I stepped out to survey the damage and pronounce it fit for work, I had to laugh at some of the dramas that have been played out in the ladies rooms of my life, including the Bloodbath, the Kilt Cover-up, and the current Kashi Go Lean Gas Blast of April 2008. I have cried, napped, hidden and laughed with co-workers in ladies rooms. Gossiped. Taken, and failed pregnancy tests. Given myself IVF injections. Done telephone interviews via cell phone. Hemmed pants. Changed bras, underwear and even whole outfits bought on lunch hours. I have counseled and been counseled by work friends on everything from boyfriends to husbands , to careers and lay-offs, to pregnancy and crying babies who wont sleep. It is my salon, my clinic, my refuge, my dressing room.

No wonder men wonder what we are doing in there together.